Bengaluru: Karnataka's Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the state will develop multiple cities as start-up hubs on the lines of Bengaluru.

"As per the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking Report-2015, Bengaluru is the only Indian city to be ranked among the best 20 startup ecosystems in the world," Siddaramaiah said.

"Our government will ensure that Bengaluru maintains the leadership position in the country. Our government would also strive to develop other important cities as startup destinations on par with top 30 international start-up hubs," he added.

Speaking at the inauguration of the second 'Startup Warehouse' in the city by Nasscom and the state government, he said the Karnataka's new startup policy seeks to stimulate growth of 20,000 tech startups by 2020 and create 6 lakh direct and 12 lakh indirect jobs.

Bengaluru has developed as the startup capital of India, with nearly 3,100 to 4,900 dynamic tech startups. The city has attained the second highest growth rate for exit volumes and VC investments among the top 20 destinations.

Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar said, "Based on the lead given by Karnataka, and Bengaluru in particular, many of the other states have now moved on to the startup warehouse idea. Today, besides Bengaluru, we have two fully functional warehouses in Kochi and Kolkata."

He said five more are in the pipeline for Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune.

Stating that start-ups are not just the lifeline of IT ecosystem, Chandrashekar said "They also are the creators of employment of tomorrow."

"We are also seeing that the start-ups are the creators of value unlike the traditional IT-BPM services industry. The valuations of these startups are testimony to how much value they are creating," he added.

The warehouse currently has 20 start-ups, which will rise to 100, and will operate from here for six months, Nasscom said.

The entrepreneurs will have a list of benefits, including connect sessions, early stage mentoring, access to resources from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Kotak Bank, it added.

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